"Bhikkhus, there are these seven kinds of persons who are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation, an unsurpassed field of merit for the world. What seven?(1) "Here, bhikkhus, some person dwells contemplating non-self in all phenomena, perceiving non-self, experiencing, constantly, and uninterruptedly focusing on it with the mind, fathoming it with wisdom. With the destruction of taints, he has realized for himself with direct knowledge, in this very life, the taintless liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, and having entered upon it, he dwells in it. This is the first kind of person worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation, an unsurpassed field of merit for the world. ..."

Satipatthana sutta, being concise, emphasizes the result of non-appropriation - when the consciousness does no longer need a support, and remains unsupported :

[Ven. Sariputta:] "Then, householder, you should train yourself in this way: 'I won't cling to the eye; my consciousness will not be dependent on the eye.' That's how you should train yourself. 'I won't cling to the ear... nose... tongue... body; my consciousness will not be dependent on the body.' ... 'I won't cling to the intellect; my consciousness will not be dependent on the intellect.' That's how you should train yourself.

The following is from a chapter by Ven Bodhi in Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2011. What Ven Bodhi has to say here is an excellent corrective to much of what has been stated above, giving us a sense of the richness of the language and thought given to us by the Buddha. I tried to catch all the misspelling, and I did not add the diacritics.

WHAT DOES MINDFULNESS REALLY MEAN? A CANONICAL PERSPECTIVEBhikkhu Bodhi

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2. The meaning of sati

A problem in hermeneutics, with intimate bearings on the actual practice ofmeditation, concerns the exact meaning of the word sati both in general and inrelation to Buddhist contemplative activity. We take the rendering 'mindfulness'so much for granted that we rarely inquire into the precise nuances of the Englishterm, let alone the meaning of the original Pali word it represents and theadequacy of the former as a rendering for the latter. The word 'mindfulness' isitself so vague and elastic that it serves almost as a cipher into which we can readvirtually anything we want. Hence we seldom recognize that the word was chosenas a rendering for sati at a particular point in time, after other terms had been triedand found inadequate.

In Indian psychology apart from Buddhism, the word smrti, the Sanskritequivalent of Pali sati, normally means memory. Thus Monier-Williams, in hisSanskrit-English Dictionary, defines smrti as 'remembrance, reminiscence, thinkingof or upon, calling to mind ... memory.'3 The Buddha's discourses, too, stillpreserve this meaning in certain contexts, as we will see. But we should not givethis excessive importance. When devising a terminology that could convey thesalient points and practices of his own teaching, the Buddha inevitably had todraw on the vocabulary available to him. To designate the practice that becamethe main pillar of his meditative system, he chose the word sati. But here sati nolonger means memory. Rather, the Buddha assigned the word a new meaningconsonant with his own system of psychology and meditation. Thus it would be afundamental mistake to insist on reading the old meaning of memory into thenew context.

It would not be a mistake, however, to try to determine how the word satiacquired its new application on the basis of the older meaning, Unfortunately forus, the Nikayas or early discourse collections do not formally define sati in the clearexpository manner that we are accustomed to finding in modern textbooks or in

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scholarly studies of meditation practice. For four centuries, the Buddhist scriptureswere preserved and transmitted orally, from one generation of reciters to the next.This method of transmission required that the compilers of the Buddha'sdiscourses compress the main points into simple repetitive formulas that wereconducive to easy memorization. Thus when we consult the texts to find out whatthey mean by sati, what we mostly encounter, instead of lucid explanations, areoperational demonstrations that indicate, in practical terms, how sati functions inBuddhist psychology and meditation practice. It is from these that we must teaseout the word's implications, testing them against each other and evaluating themby personal reflection and experience.

The first scholar, it seems, to render sati as 'mindfulness' was the great Britishtranslator T. W. Rhys Davids, founder of the Pali Text Society. His comment in theintroduction to his translation of the Mahasatipatthana Sutta still showsremarkable acumen:

Etymologically Sati is Memory. But as happened at the rise of Buddhism to somany other expressions in common use, a new connotation was then attachedto the word, a connotation that gave a new meaning to it, and renders 'memory'a most inadequate and misleading translation. It became the memory,recollection, calling-to-mind, being-aware-of, certain specified facts. Of these themost important was the impermanence (the coming to be as the result of acause, and the passing away again) of all phenomena, bodily and mental. And itincluded the repeated application of this awareness, to each experience of life,from the ethical point of view.4

The Nikayas employ two recurrent formulas to illustrate the meaning of sati.One harkens back to the old meaning of memory; the other refers to itsoccurrence in relation to the four satipatthanas. We meet the first in SN 48:9,which provides an analysis of the five spiritual faculties: faith, energy, mindfulness,concentration, and wisdom. The sutta briefly defines each with a short formula,the 'faculty of mindfulness' (satindriya) as follows:

And what, monks, is the faculty of mindfulness? Here, the noble disciple ismindful, possessing supreme mindfulness and alertness, one who remembersand recollects what was done and said long ago. This is called the faculty ofmindfulness.5

The operative expression in Pali here is sarita anussarita, 'one whoremembers and recollects.' Both words are agent nouns derived from the verbsarati, 'to remember' or 'to be mindful'; the first is simple, the second is prefixedwith anu. While the two words, taken in isolation, might be interpreted as referringeither to remembrance or mindfulness, the phrase 'what was done and said longago' (cirakatampi cirabhasitampi) favours interpreting sati here in terms ofmemory.

However, in the next sutta, SN 48:10, the five faculties are defined again. Thefaculty of mindfulness is first defined, as in the preceding sutta, as the ability to

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recollect what was done and said long ago. But then, as if admitting that thisdefinition is inadequate, the text adds the stock formula on the fourestablishments of mindfulness: 'He dwells contemplating the body in the body... phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, havingremoved covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world. This is called thefaculty of mindfulness.'6 This indicates that the compilers of the texts were notsatisfied with the simple definition in terms of memory but felt the need tosupplement it with another definition that underscores its connection withmeditation practice. The next sutta, SN 48:11, raises the question: 'What is thefaculty of mindfulness?' and answers: The mindfulness that one obtains on thebasis of the four establishments of mindfulness: this is called the faculty ofmindfulness.'7 Here, sati as memory is not brought in at all. One might suggestthat sati as mindfulness, in the sense of a lucid awareness of the present, enablessati to function as memory. While this may be factually true, the texts themselvesmake no such suggestion but simply juxtapose the two formulations withoutexplanation.

We find this ambivalence in the meaning of sati emerge from two otherwiseparallel expositions on the seven factors of enlightenment (satta bojjhahga). Thefirst enlightenment factor is mindfulness (satisambojjhahga), which is followed inorder by investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. Theearlier sutta, SN 46:3, opens with the Buddha praising the benefits of associatingwith monks fully accomplished in the training, one benefit being that a monk getsto hear the Dhamma from them. Having heard the Dhamma from them, 'the monkrecollects that Dhamma and thinks it over. By doing so, on that occasion the monkarouses, develops, and fulfills the enlightenment factor of mindfulness.'8 In thispassage, invisible in the English translation, mindfulness (sati) as an enlightenmentfactor is derived from the act of recollecting and reflecting on the teaching onehas heard. The two verbs used are anussarati and anuvitakketi. The first is anaugmented form of sarati, 'to remember,' from which the noun sati is derived; thesecond is the basis for the noun vitakka, thought or reflection. The discoursecontinues through the other six factors of enlightenment and ends with the fruitsof the practice.

Taken on its own, this text seems to reinforce the interpretation of sati as theexercise of memory. However, in another sutta, SN 54:13, the Buddha treats eachof the four establishments of mindfulness as a springboard to the seven factors ofenlightenment. And so, when a monk 'dwells contemplating the body in the body... phenomena in phenomena, on that occasion the monk arouses, develops, andfulfills the enlightenment factor of mindfulness.'9 Once mindfulness has arisen, theother factors of enlightenment arise in turn, culminating in 'true knowledge andliberation.' This text has the same scaffolding as the earlier one, but here theenlightenment factor of mindfulness emerges not from memory, not fromrecollecting teachings that one has heard, but from direct contemplation of thebody, feelings, mind, and experiential phenomena.

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There is one Pali word used by the commentaries to clarify the meaning ofsati which, I think, testifies to an attempt to underscore the new role beingassigned to it. This word is upatthana. Upatthana means, firstly, 'setting up,establishing,' which is what one does with mindfulness. Already in the Nikayas theword is closely connected with sati. The compound satipatthana is itself composedof sati and upatthana. The four satipatthanas are the four establishments ofmindfulness, a process of setting up mindfulness, distinguished as fourfold by wayof its objective domains. This analysis indicates that to establish mindfulness is notto set about remembering something that occurred in the past, but to adopt aparticular stance towards one's present experience. I characterize this as a stance ofobservation or watchfulness towards one's own experience. One might even callthe stance of sati a 'bending back' of the light of consciousness upon theexperiencing subject in its physical, sensory, and psychological dimensions. Thisact of 'bending back' serves to illuminate the events occurring in these domains,lifting them out from the twilight zone of unawareness into the light of clearcognition.

The sense of 'presence' pertaining to the word upatthana comes out moreexplicitly in a canonical exegetical work called the Patisambhidamagga, whichglosses each of the five faculties with another term through which it is to be'directly known' (abhihheyyam). Thus the faculty of faith is to be directly known asconviction: the faculty of energy, as exertion; the faculty of mindfulness, aspresence (upatthanatthena satindriyam); the faculty of concentration, as non-distraction; and the faculty of wisdom, as seeing.10 Here, sati is equated withupatthana not in the sense that the meditator 'establishes mindfulness,' but in thesense that mindfulness is itself an act of establishing presence. Mindfulnessestablishes the presence of the object and thereby makes it available to scrutinyand discernment.

This interpretation brings out the impact the practice of sati has on itsobjective field. On the one hand, we might say that it brackets the 'objectification'of the object that occurs in our everyday interactions with the world, whereby wetreat objects as things 'out there' subservient to our pragmatic purposes. On theother hand, sati makes the objective field 'present' to awareness as an expanse ofphenomena exhibiting their own distinctive phenomenal characteristics, as well aspatterns and structures common to all conditioned phenomena. The net effect isto make the objective field clearly available for inspection. The Visuddhimaggasupports this hypothesis when it states that sati has as its manifestation 'directlyfacing the objective domain' (visayabhimukhabhavapaccupatthana).11 We mightcharacterize mindfulness in this sense, in the simplest terms, as lucid awareness.12

I believe it is this aspect of sati that provides the connection between its twoprimary canonical meanings: as memory and as lucid awareness of presenthappenings. Sati makes the apprehended object stand forth vividly and distinctlybefore the mind. When the object being cognized pertains to the past— when it isapprehended as something that was formerly done, perceived, or spoken— itsvivid presentation takes the form of memory. When the object is a bodily process

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like in-and-out breathing or the act of walking back and forth, or when it is amental event like a feeling or thought, its vivid presentation takes the form of lucidawareness of the present.

In the Pali suttas, sati has still other roles in relation to meditation but thesereinforce its characterization in terms of lucid awareness and vivid presentation.For example, the texts include as types of mindfulness recollection of the Buddha(buddhanussati), contemplation of the repulsiveness of the body (asubhasanna),and mindfulness of death (maranassati); for each brings its objective domainvividly before the mind. The Metta Sutta even refers to meditation on lovingkindnessas a kind of mindfulness.13 In each of these cases, the object is aconceptual phenomenon— the qualities of the Buddha, the repulsiveness of thebody, the inevitability of death, or lovable living beings— yet the mental pose thatattends to them is designated mindfulness. What unites them, from the side of thesubject, is the lucidity and vivacity of the act o f awareness, and from the side of theobject, its vivid presentation.

Apart from the meditative context, sati enters the noble eightfold path inanother role that cannot be overlooked if we are to determine its exact meaning.This is as a guarantor of the correct practice of all the other path factors. M N 117draws distinctions between the wrong (miccha) and right (samma) versions of thefirst five path factors, from views to livelihood. After making each distinction, itthen explains how right view, right effort, and right mindfulness occur inassociation with each path factor. Taking right intention as an example, the textreads: 'One understands wrong intention as it is and right intention as it is; this isone's right view One makes an effort to abandon wrong intention and toacquire right intention: this is one's right effort. Mindfully one abandons wrongintention and mindfully one acquires and dwells in right intention: this is one'sright mindfulness.'14 The same stipulation is laid down with regard to the otherfactors, including right speech, right action, and right livelihood, thus ensuringthat one mindfully embraces the ethical constituents of the path.

This explanation makes problematic the common interpretation ofmindfulness as a type of awareness intrinsically devoid of discrimination,evaluation, and judgment. While such a depiction of mindfulness has gainedcurrency in the popular literature on meditation, it does not square well with thecanonical texts and may even lead to a distorted view of how mindfulness is to bepracticed. There are certainly occasions when the cultivation of mindfulnessrequires the practitioner to suspend discrimination, evaluation, and judgment,and to adopt instead a stance of simple observation. However, to fulfill its role asan integral member of the eightfold path mindfulness has to work in unison withright view and right effort. This means that the practitioner of mindfulness must attimes evaluate mental qualities and intended deeds, make judgments aboutthem, and engage in purposeful action. In conjunction with right view,mindfulness enables the practitioner to distinguish wholesome qualities fromunwholesome ones, go od deeds from bad deeds, beneficial states of mind fromharmful states. In conjunction with right effort, it promotes the removal of

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unwholesome mental qualities and the acquisition of wholesome qualities. It isonly in this way that the practice of mindfulness can lay a foundation for correctwisdom to arise and extirpate the roots of suffering.

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NOTES

3. Monier-Williams (2005, 1272).4. Rhys Davids (1910). Cited from unpaginated online version.5. SN V 197 (CDB 1671). The formula also occurs at AN 5:14 and AN 7:4 as adefinition of the power of mindfulness.' Interestingly, the Chinese parallels to SN48:9 (SA 646 at TII 182b19) and AN 5:14 (SA 675 atT II 185c12) define the facultyand power of mindfulness, respectively, by way of the four bases of mindfulness.This might have resulted from standardization made at a time when the oldmeaning of memory had faded even further into the background.6. SN V 198 (CDB 1672).7. SN V 200 (CDB 1673).

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8. SN V 67 (CDB 1571).9. SN V 329-33 (CDB 1780-85).10. Patis I 20. Though included in the Pali Canon, the Patisambhidamagga obviouslydates from a period later than the old Nikayas, which contain the Buddha'sdiscourses. The work was a major influence on the Visuddhimagga, which oftenquotes from it.11. Vism 464. See Nanamoli (1991, 14.141).12. I hesitate to use the word 'awareness' without qualification as a rendering of sati,for this word has been chosen to represent a number of Pali technical termsranging from vinnana (consciousness) and citta (mind) to sati, sampajanaa, andvijja (penetrative knowledge).13. Recollection of the Buddha is at AN 6:10, AN 6:25, etc. Contemplation of thebody's repulsiveness is at DN 22.5 (LDB 337) and MN 10.10 (MLDB 147) andelsewhere. Mindfulness of death is at AN 6:19 and AN 6:20. Sn v. 151 says aboutmeditation on loving-kindness: etam satim adhittheyya, 'one should resolve onthis mindfulness.'14. MN 117.10-15 (III 72-73; MLDB 935[/i]-36).

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond.SN I, 38.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

What I take away from Bhikkhu Bodhi's essay is that sati is not a state of being. It is an activity. If one must use a noun to translate sati, Simone Weil’s “attention” deserves some consideration. The way Simone Weil uses “attention” in her book Gravity and Grace conveys action and reminds us that to end suffering means to wake up.

Spiny Norman wrote:The best description I've heard of sati as an activity is "paying attention". Or more accurately the foundational stage of sati, what some call "bare attention".

If an ordinary man is lustfully or indulgently "paying attention" to a naked or "bare" voluptuous woman, is this 'sati'?

The Blessed One said, "Suppose, monks, that a large crowd of people comes thronging together, saying, 'The beauty queen! The beauty queen!' And suppose that the beauty queen is highly accomplished at singing & dancing, so that an even greater crowd comes thronging, saying, 'The beauty queen is singing! The beauty queen is dancing!' Then a man comes along, desiring life & shrinking from death, desiring pleasure & abhorring pain. They say to him, 'Now look here, mister. You must take this bowl filled to the brim with oil and carry it on your head in between the great crowd & the beauty queen. A man with a raised sword will follow right behind you, and wherever you spill even a drop of oil, right there will he cut off your head.' Now what do you think, monks: Will that man, not paying attention to the bowl of oil, let himself get distracted outside?"

"No, lord."

"I have given you this parable to convey a meaning. The meaning is this: The bowl filled to the brim with oil stands for mindfulness [leading to the mind being] immersed in the body. Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will develop mindfulness immersed in the body. We will pursue it, hand it the reins and take it as a basis, give it a grounding, steady it, consolidate it, and undertake it well.' That is how you should train yourselves."

Spiny Norman wrote:The best description I've heard of sati as an activity is "paying attention". Or more accurately the foundational stage of sati, what some call "bare attention".

If an ordinary man is lustfully or indulgently "paying attention" to a naked or "bare" voluptuous woman, is this 'sati'?

Clearly not, but I did say that paying attention was just the foundational stage of sati. Obviously sati involves much more than paying attention, and includes sati sampajanna, wisdom. It's also clear from the suttas that sati isn't a stand-alone activity, it works closely with the other path factors.

"I ride tandem with the random, Things don't run the way I planned them, In the humdrum."Peter Gabriel lyric